IBM, Hello Tractor unveil new agric tech in Lagos

Scientists from IBM Research and Hello Tractor are piloting an agriculture digital wallet and decision-making tool which provides demand and supply visibility for farmers, tractor fleet providers and banks to give farmers the equipment and technology they need to build a sustainable farm. The technology was unveiled in Lagos at the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa […]

Scientists from IBM Research and Hello Tractor are piloting an agriculture digital wallet and decision-making tool which provides demand and supply visibility for farmers, tractor fleet providers and banks to give farmers the equipment and technology they need to build a sustainable farm.

The technology was unveiled in Lagos at the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa 2018 which ended recently.

The tech platform delivers new services for the agriculture value chain including tractor maintenance, fleet utilization, operator rankings, farm yield forecasting and microfinancing.

“To reach the next level, we need to add additional services including predictive fleet utilization and maintenance; operator and tractor scoring; financing and the crop yield forecasting,” said Jehiel Oliver, CEO and founder of Hello Tractor.

Also speaking, Dr. Solomon Assefa, vice president, Emerging Market Solutions and director, IBM Research – Africa, said, “Our vision is to leverage AI, blockchain and the Internet of Things to digitize, optimize, and streamline agricultural business processes to create efficiencies and new services from farm-to-fork around the world.”